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The ALC is committed to improving the program and meeting the needs of our teachers and test participants.
Feedback is important to us because it ensures that the program continues to evolve as a valuable resource for both language learners and teachers.
Copies of all teacher feedback are provided to our writers and test developers.
Comment on your experience on ALC 2011
Australia
Stawell Secondary College is a school with approximately 550 students situated in the western part of Victoria, Australia. Many students from our school have been to Germany on exchanges and even more students have participated with the Australian Language Certificates tests for German. Our school first took part in 1990 and has continued to do so.
Students greatly appreciate the certificates and also use the tests as a tool to find out where improvement is needed. The tests offer a variety of topics and are also good for building confidence, when students realise they actually can understand the German conversations and the short written texts. Good results make studying vocabulary and grammar at home and in school a great deal more rewarding!
New Zealand
It is with much excitement and expectation that our students at Feilding High School in New Zealand enrol in the ALC Japanese and French Language Certificate exams each year. A good number of them consistently score in the top 10% of Australasia and the Certificate looks great on their bedroom wall or in a CV.
It is awesome preparation for our internally and externally assessed National Exams NCEA Levels 1,2 and 3, and helps the students assess how they are doing earlier in the year by way of sitting previous years papers, and the real exam helps them prepare for internal exams in September as well. ALC is thus highly regarded in the school and community.
Preparing for the ALC exam helps equip our language students for trips to Japan and New Caledonia every two years as the content of the exam is highly practical, drawing useful expressions and vocabulary from every day Japanese and French.
Fiji Islands
Here at International School Suva (ISS) the ALC tests have been done for a number of years in both French and Japanese. The students we choose or who choose to sit these tests are stimulated by the content, being able to pit their language skills against a format that is different from their formative tests. The latter tests are closely linked to their class text book and use familiar illustrations and vocabulary. Through the ALC tests, they get to challenge themselves, using the knowledge and skills they have acquired in the classroom.
As for us language teachers, the ALC tests are a good way of gauging students’ levels of competence. We use previous years’ ALC test papers as practice tests and as classroom resource material. The themes covered in the tests are similar to what we do in our classes so these tests are relevant for us. At the end of the whole exercise, the students are given their certificates in an assembly so they are recognized for their efforts by the school and they have a real sense of achievement because that certificate shows them how well they have done in their language skills, not only in school but also in the Australasian region.
